(00:00:00) A is tornado awareness day and that means that it about 121 this afternoon you are going to hear a set of sirens very possibly around much of the state of Minnesota. I think that's the intention of the exercise will be talking about that in a little bit with Bruce Watson. This is also been a wimpy winter and we'll be asking Bruce why we'll be asking Bruce about some departures from normals and things of that nature. But first of all this news item just in from San Juan Capistrano, California, the swallows officially return to Capistrano today thousands of people crowded the grounds of Mission San Juan Capistrano training binoculars and cameras toward gloomy-looking Skies as the birds returned in an annual Rite of Spring. We have our own annual Rite of Spring. He's called Bruce Watson Consulting meteorologist in the Twin Cities known to many of you as one of the authors of the weather guide calendar a wonderful document that you can put On your wall and get all sorts of useful mostly useful some of it a little useless information about wonderful things concerning the weather and wildlife in our region a very fun document Bruce. Thank you for coming by he's to be we're going to be throwing a set of prepared questions at you because I have been primed rather. Liberally by my colleagues here at Minnesota Public Radio to get some questions into you right away. First of all, I don't know Bruce that you are an official with this exercise. But this is tornado awareness day. I think we do need to ask you about that right away tornado awareness in Minnesota strike some Outsiders as odd because tornadoes of course are not a worldwide phenomenon, but here in the Midwest very serious matter. What is the tornado activity level from year to year in Minnesota? How many tornadoes might we see in a given year (00:01:54) Well, I supposed typically year. We see something around a half dozen or so, but we could get Update your 20 and some years. (00:02:02) Yeah, and has there been a pattern at all that you have observed over the years over the Decades of tornadic activity? (00:02:08) Yeah. Basically there is a tornado alley that runs from around the vicinity of Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas through Oklahoma and then on up through Kansas eastern, Nebraska, Iowa and then in across the southern part of Minnesota west of the Minnesota River. Yeah, if you will west of st. Peter sort of across Fairmont and then up over Lake Minnetonka and then I'm through the northern saw suburbs Eastward to Phelps, Wisconsin, and then actually there's another streak that is each of the Ozarks. If you know it was that last path was just the west of the Ozarks over the Ozarks themselves and there's sort of a shadow this form by the Ozarks. So your next streak Lies Over, Illinois eastern Three actually solve each in Missouri on into eastern, Arkansas Western, Tennessee. So most of your tornadoes tend to form along those two lines (00:03:10) Bruce. Is there any reason to believe that the lack of snow cover or put another way the large amounts of bare spots of Earth over the wintertime and into the spring now are going to soak up that solar energy and cause a different kind of weather pattern that we might see in a more normal (00:03:25) winter. Well, basically the large scale weather patterns are affected by the sum of all the events going on the surface all around the globe. So one of the area like guys and I might emphasize that we are rather small. It's basically been the southern part of Minnesota the Southern and Central parts of Wisconsin Northern Iowa that have escaped most of the snow over the winter. So actually it's not as Extreme as it might seem to us because we're right in the island that Has been miss all winter by the (00:04:01) storms four minutes after 12 o'clock. And you're listening to Bruce Watson Consulting meteorologist here in the Twin Cities who we invite in a couple of times a year to talk about the weather and now we're going to invite you to ask questions by way of your telephone. Here's the telephone number in the Twin Cities 2276 thousand 2276 thousand. That's the Twin Cities number outside the Twin Cities with in Minnesota. There's no charge for this call at one eight hundred six five two 9701 806 5 2007 hundred Bruce just handed me a sheet The Year Without a winter. It could be a made-for-television movie. Maybe there are some book rights possible from this Bruce. If you could put something together how far were the departures from normal for this very unusual winter season? We've had in 86 87. (00:04:52) Yeah. Well, the reason I'm calling this year without a winter is that we have never since 1819 when record-keeping began. In 68 years ago. We have never had a winter that is this then this combination of warmth and dryness our average temperature. This year was 11.1 degrees above normal and the warmest we've ever had was back in eighteen seventy seven seventy eight when it was 12.8 above normal. We beat out 1930-31 which I'm sure a lot of the radio viewers recall that when winter average 9.8 above normal. So we're a degree and a half above that very warm winter of 30 31, and we've also beaten up the very warm winter of 1845 1846, which was nine point four degrees above normal. So once again, it was 11.1 degrees above normal this represents the second warmest winter since 1819. Also, we had the second driest year. I'm sorry second driest winter ever since record has that began in 1836? And it was the third least snowy. So we got three things involved extremely warm extremely dry and along with it. Very little (00:06:11) snow one to remember for the grandkids. We can say we were alive in 1986-87 when we had the second warmest winter on record. (00:06:18) Well actually more than that people should write this down because I figure it out by generations and if a winter like this should happen again until 21:55. So you should write it down for your great great great great great grandchildren. It'll be that many generations before we see another winter light as well as good as this one (00:06:39) might have to make an audio tape of that for those great great great great ones. Well, we've got calls on the line Bruce Watson. Let's get to the first one right now. Good afternoon. We're listening for your question. Oh, hi. I was calling because you just indicated that it seems to be a lot Regional anomaly. I know western Canada had it fairly easy to Calgary. Yeah, exactly. Play I was just wondering if you know I'll tell you why I'm wondering if there had been a pattern of these sort of anomalies and a global scale. I missed the winter. I was on the Southern Ocean and in Antarctica for two and a half months. And what was happening down. There was the heaviest I see you in recent memory. What may I ask were you doing there checking it out. I sit at your own expense or somebody else's I was on a sailboat on an expedition. I see no, but how about that? Well, anyway getting back to the question. (00:07:31) Well, this has been a year of very unusual weather patterns just as we've added so warm Europe has ended very cold Moscow recorded 47 below and remember Moscow is the same climate that we have and that was the coldest ever observed in Moscow and curiously the coldest temperature ever has driven. The Twin Cities is also 47 below. (00:07:51) Are you serious? We have the same weather as Moscow here in the Twin Cities latitude/longitude, (00:07:55) right? Virtually the same climb is Moscow we have about the same average annual temperature. The same average annual precipitation they do get a little bit more snow than we get we get less a little bit more rain and they get a little bit they get it more in the form of snow. So their temperatures are always quite comparable to ours, but on top of that, of course the Middle East has been very cold in the southeast part of the Arabian peninsula in the trucial states there. They had never had snow in recorded history and they not only got snow they got over a foot of it. And (00:08:32) can you imagine they don't have snow plows in that part (00:08:34) of know they they say no but I think it probably melted kind of fast. I suppose you're right. But again also Greece had snow and I believe Tel Aviv and snow which is very unusual Jerusalem get snow once in a while because it's on high ground, but I think they have stone Tel Aviv to and of course in parts of Greece they had snow and lots of it where they sell them have it. It all depends on the way the winds blowing if the Word upload differently than we would have winters like this all the time. One thing. We hope of course it's not tied in with the depletion of the ozone. That'd be real shocker. (00:09:09) No kidding. We've got calls waiting will get to the next listener right now. Good afternoon. Bruce's listening. Good afternoon Bruce meteorology seems to rival only baseball in its fanatical Zeal for numbers and record-keeping despite that I'd like to add to that tendency with a couple quick questions. First two Saturdays ago. The high temperature was broken by quite a degree in that had us wondering what the record amount by which a higher low temperature. Is that the record by which it's been broken, you know, the greatest Gap and second. What do you think is your favorite bizarre type of weather record? I'll hang up and listen. Thanks. (00:09:54) Okay. First of all, let's address the temperature the airport and a reading of 73 degrees this actually He is above the warmest theoretical temperature that we could get that early in the year. We might take note that the earliest we had ever get 70 before this was March 16th. So we beat That by about 10 days moreover the warmest. It's ever been an April 7th a whole month later than March 7th when we had the 73 the record for April 1775. So we broke this by a very very wide. Margin If This Were to have happened. Let's say in January we would have seen a temperature of 64 degrees if it happened in July, we've been equivalent to a reading of 117. So what we saw was a very bizarre weather incident a lot of people may have watched the satellite picture and cable TV on March 7th, and it's just incredible the huge mass of sinking air. That was or the United States that just killed all the clouds all around the United States it was Very unusual situation as for the most bizarre. Record, I like to see I don't know. It's kind of hard to pick and choose I suppose tornadoes are probably the most exciting and the most destructive and I guess that would excite me more but that's the last thing I like to see I much rather see a very mild winter that I find is more feeling. (00:11:25) That's right. Alright callers waiting will get to the next one. Good afternoon. Bruce is listening the lack of snow cover. I hear reports that Lake. Minnetonka is very low, but presumably they were planning ahead and drained it down through Minnehaha Creek because of the summer and fall rains and If there is no snow cover, I'm wondering if there's more evaporation and my other concern you touched on. I thought maybe there was just a tilt that the north polar air mass tilted over Moscow and then they strong upper air currents prevented those cold air masses from coming down to Minnesota. Is that (00:12:20) feasible? Well, the thing is, yeah. He's essentially you have the right picture what we have is this big West Wind Blows all around the Northern Hemisphere from west to east over about the lad to the US and Canada, but little whirlpools of are forming that which are the big storms that hit us and this current of air as a result of the combination of the west-wind the General West Wind around the earth plus the storms. Cause the air to appear to snake north and south and people generally refer to that as the position of the jet stream. It's actually where the wind is blowing the off the fastest and it forms a snake-like pattern and depending just on which way these winds blow which way you're moving down cold air from the North and which way you're moving out of warm air from the South Lee Global pattern relates to itself. In other words What's Happening Here is related to the weather all around the Northern Hemisphere and unfortunately the local TV stations. In fact, even The Weather Channel itself doesn't show these Maps which are available to all the weather forecaster and some weather forecasts. Don't even you and you as my mom shocked because I just love to use the Northern Hemisphere charts because if you can get the pattern if you can see the way the pattern is evolving it enables you to Pick up the rhythm of what's happening with the weather a lot easier (00:13:53) have we lost a lot of water that would replenish lakes and streams or has the evaporation right (00:13:58) affected? Yeah, right one thing because of the lack of snow. We're not going to have any runoff. And so that's going to help Drive the lake levels moreover. The ground is already dry because the thing is the sequence of events is that we normally get our melt off of snow and then we go into a period of low humidity. This is before the rainy season starts. We going to pre of sunshine lots of wind low humidity which dries out the grass and then this is followed by instead of about 10 days of East Wind in which the air becomes more humid. And then the rainy season begins and our normal date for the rainy season to begin is April 19th. So we're already into the phase. We're we're drying out the grass. The grass now is already dry. We've been running relative humidities on a lot of days the last week of 20 25 percent. So the grass has become extremely dry. And of course though the soil is becoming dry to normally this time of the year March 19th. This is the incident of the average data which the snow-covered disappears so normally on March 19th was snow or the ground is very very moist very wet. In fact, it's usually soggy but we've already been drying out for two weeks. So this means that the ground is going to become extremely dry before the rainy season begins. (00:15:28) Are we going to have a big season Ender snowstorm in your opinion? (00:15:32) I I really can't answer that because we're getting the little looks like the temperature band is going to stay warm. And if it does that will get rain instead and instead of snow if we do get snow it'll probably be very wet snow and it'll probably just get a couple three inches deep because of the density of the wetness of it. So if we do get snow it probably won't be a storm that he has much depth to it. (00:16:02) Bruce Watson is our guests will get to the next caller right now. Good afternoon. We're listening good afternoon. You touched on my question earlier when you made some allusion to the ozone layer depletion. I'm just wondering if there are any folks out there in your field thinking about the possible effect of that or other ecologically phenomena that might be creating pattern changes. That would be more permanent in (00:16:26) nature. Oh, yeah, one thing that would happen if the ozone were to continue be To be depleted and of course, it's down about 40 percent in the southern hemisphere in about 30% The northern hemisphere. Is it the upper winds would keep blowing from the West All Summer Long what happens about February 25th 26th 27th. Is that the Sun starts to shine on the very thick ozone over the polar regions. And of course ozone is the only significant gas in the atmosphere that absorbs sunlight. So this makes the polar regions extremely warm because the sun is hitting the ozone obliquely and by becoming warm this causes the West the winter West Winds in the upper atmosphere to reverse into an East Wind, and if you take away the ozone, you're not going to get your normal summertime East Wind. Well, I should say spring and summer it runs from about February 27th to around October 1st. You won't have your East Wind at that time in this is going to change in turn the way the air currents blow down below and you'll upset completely the flow patterns of the air around the earth and by doing that you're going to probably have some disastrous shifts in climate. Now, I really still have to say I believe that this is natural that there's some kind of a cycle that is happening with the ozone. If it's true that it's not a cycle. I would be the most shocking thing I've ever seen happen in the atmosphere you you could lead to a real disaster the this is something like the AIDS problem though. It's only been about seven years. They've collected good data on ozone in the upper atmosphere. And in those seven years, of course, we've seen this dramatic decrease and I just can't believe that man could possibly have follow the atmosphere. This much. Well, I guess I can but it just seems unbelievable that we could affect such a huge change in the atmosphere. I certainly hope it's this is like all (00:18:43) other callers waiting will get to the next one. Good afternoon. Bruce Watson is listening. I've got three quick questions here. You're discussing one of them ozone. There was a report yesterday on midday about Los Angeles and one of the major causes of smog and Los Angeles is Ozone and it named a number of constituents of various polluters that when combined with moisture in the atmosphere cause all zone. Why is it such a problem at lower levels like Los Angeles and problem and so imperative to The Climate when it's upper levels second question is I'm interested in starting or having a small weather station right at my house and use the iron. I understand that I can just On the TV or whatever but it still fascinates me. What is there are some good. Excuse me? What are some good kinds of basic sort of starting equipment that I can get into and third if you could could you briefly explain what exactly is a wind shear in a microburst? (00:19:50) Okay, your first question relates to the ozone in the upper hamstring the ozone in Los Angeles. First of all bear in mind that the amount of ozone in the air in Los Angeles is a very tiny amount as big as the Los Angeles metropolitan area is it's still very small and of course this is true of all metropolitan areas the amount of ozone that's concentrated in urban areas due to pollution is very tiny. So the magnitude of the polluter of the ozone we're talking about the upper atmosphere is far far greater. The reason that the ozone is so important to every atmosphere is that it governs the upper air wind field and the upper air wind field in turn is related to the Winfield in the lower atmosphere. So this is why it's of global importance your second question relates to starting a home weather station. Now, we have a local organization in town. It's the Aiken chapter of the American Association of weather observers, and we meet about once every two months generally at all members home or it's some weather facility like we met last time yet, you know members house time before that. We made a channel 11. We're going to meet in our next meeting of the National Weather Service, and I think you'd benefit a lot. If you come to one of our meetings (00:21:13) and I think towards the end of midday Bruce. Let's give out the operative telephone number that folks can call run address. They can (00:21:21) run. I'll give him my number right now. It's 633 Three 4 9 6 (00:21:27) 633349634966 is the telephone number for Bruce Watson. You can call that number and get information about a group of folks who like to watch and measure the weather (00:21:39) right watch or measure. You don't have to have your own station, but most of our members do but that way if you give me a call, I can give you a lot of details on how to get away weather station started. Okay. Third thing is windshear you asked about when share when sure is a difference in velocity of the wind and it comes into play a lot. Let's say in severe thunderstorms where you have a downburst of cold air from a thunderstorm which hits the ground and then spreads out and this causes of course of Lassie to difference in the air when sure is important in other places, like for instance the jet stream. It's a column of fast-moving air and the wind difference the It was between the jet stream and they are next to it. Again is windshear. Now one thing that wind shear does is set up Eddie's it sets up a little whirlpools of air and you've probably seen this around corners of buildings. Well, we weren't sure is important to getting tornadoes going. It's important to airplanes crashing. A lot of times the airplane will come in for a landing and suddenly it encounters a burst of wind. Let's say from a thunderstorm and the changed women glass is more than the airplane can cope with so it flips it a microburst is a little down burst of cold air and which is Jay is generated in a thunderstorm (00:23:11) and we can feel that on the (00:23:13) ground. Yes, right on the ground which you feel is a sudden gust it went. All right gusts of wind are caused either by the are tumbling. Well, it's essentially the air Rising falling the are tumbling around and Microbrews is a bundle of area that tumbles down to where the ground hits it real fast and spreads (00:23:31) out. Let's go back to the telephone Bruce Watson. We have questioners waiting will get to the next one. Good afternoon. We're listening. Hello. I have two quick questions. I'm wondering if you could just touch a little bit about how volcanoes and other natural disasters affect the weather as well as maybe mention what you know about how the explosion at Chernobyl affected the weather both in the Europe area and in the United States, (00:23:55) okay, first of all volcanoes affecting the weather somebody wrote a paper several years ago. They were studying the correlation between temperatures on the earth and the eruption of volcanoes the big eruptions like Krakatoa and What they found out is that in each case cold weather preceeded the volcano eruption. And so one suggested made in Jesse's the cold weather causes volcanoes to Europe, but actually it gets very confusing because it just turns out we've had these major volcanic eruptions the weather turned cold just as part of a cycle. So it's thought that volcanoes probably affected whether it's very little you're talking about maybe temperature change changes in fractions of a degree for a year or two so volcanoes read on how much affecting weather at least of the size that we've encountered in historic times. Now if meteor would have drop into the Earth, let's say it's a mile across and caused a big volcano erupt that could lead to some very very cold weather around the earth and all a lot of dust in the air now as Fortune, opal that Really? No effect on the weather whatsoever. You was much too small and the Very there's not enough energy there to be of any substantial (00:25:19) but to turn that around it was the emissions from Chernobyl which got carried into the atmosphere. I take it in some form and caused a fairly sizable disruptions among Dairy Farmers. Yes Growers, (00:25:32) but the right but these didn't affect the the weather but the weather affected the way that of course that the emissions were (00:25:41) carrying. Well you raised a fascinating question about this business of the impact of a meteor on the Earth's surface and maybe just spend a few seconds exploring that someone has said that we're basically overdue for a visit by a meteor hitting the Earth's surface. So what's that all about and how seriously can that affect weather (00:25:59) patterns? Well meteors hit the earth area where every so often we know this because we can see the you know, the impact craters for instance in Arizona. See the great meteor crater there recently. I was reading an article in Science magazine. Some people that were investigating a meteor that fell off the coast of Chile and they found that that meteor was if I believe they said it was 1/2 Mile across but more startling you'd only it only occurred 1.2 million years ago, which is recent in geological time and a meteor like that would put so much dust in the atmosphere that it would substantially. Cool the Earth so that are growing Seasons would be to short it would undoubtedly cut the food supply to the point where many people would would would would starve to death. And of course small animals would would make out better a mosquito leave with the mosquitoes would probably find it very good. But people the course we would I ran into a table food shortage of something like that happened now, and of course this can happen anytime. There's no way to predict a meteor coming in very far ahead. We Star Wars if I may mention it could possibly be as a Salvation of a meteor coming possibly man could build an arsenal of rockets to destroy the meteor coming in. That's perhaps we should get together with those Soviets instead of trying to Amy these each other aim at a potential meteor coming in Sunday. (00:27:40) All right. We'll go back to the telephone. Good afternoon. Bruce Watson is listening for your question. Good afternoon. I think you heard her. I read recently about weather phenomenon known as El Nino. And what I was wondering was if you would explain briefly. What what El Nino is and also how that is affecting our weather patterns. And if this will affect our weather patterns for some time to come, (00:28:06) okay beyond the annual refers to a warming of the ocean off the west coast of Peru of the Spaniards noted this back in the days of the Conch a cigar as and it occurred around Christmas time. And so this is where the name came from El Nino which means the child which is by which they mean the Christ child is so it generally occurs around Christmas every year generally, of course, it isn't too strong but in some years it gets very strong. So the water temperature gets 10 15 degrees above normal. Now, the reason that the water isn't warm normally off the west coast of Peru despite the fact that Crews on the equator is that you have a cold current of air that flows up from the Antarctic ocean called the Humboldt current and this flows along the west coast of Chile and then of course it turns to the toward the Northwest as it flows along the coast of Peru and then when it gets west of Peru what happens is that the trade winds pick up the water and they ship it to the toward the west toward Indonesia and Australia. So as long as those winds are blowing pretty strong you keep pretty cool water for quite a ways to the west of Peru, but if the winds slacking like they tend to do around Christmas time, then that allows warm water to accumulate off the coast other words, you're not bringing that cold water and what this does is cause a lot more evaporation because warm water can evaporate a lot more than a cold cold water again, so that puts a lot of water into the air and turns makes lots of clouds. Which brings Lots of rain to Peru now back in the 1920s somebody working in Australia Indonesia area notice that every so often you would get some peculiar weather in Australia and Indonesia, and this was tied in with the seasonal movement north and south of the subtropical high-pressure system. There's a big pile of are over the South Pacific Ocean is called the South Pacific high and this moves north and south and the thing is that as it moves North and South it and yet also intensifies its stronger in one season. It is the others and so when it's strong you get a strong West win, but in the wintertime when it weekends the the trade winds, so the trade winds will weaken and course what happened when people put two and two together they tie In the El Nino fun animal with the southern oscillation. So this this very phenomenon this changing in the winds due to the characteristics of the South Pacific High cause weather changes over a vast part of the globe in the southern hemisphere, but it also does cause changes over certain areas in the northern hemisphere. The southwestern United States does get affected to some extent by the El Nino. However, in the midwest in other parts of the Earth are seems to be very little relationship between the southern oscillation El Nino phenomenon and the weather so here it really doesn't seem to cause any rate variation in the (00:31:32) whether it's 32 minutes past twelve o'clock. That's the voice of Consulting meteorologist Bruce Watson who's with us in the studio taking your questions about the weather and Bruce, I think before midday is over. We're going to replay some of the numbers that you presented at the beginning. Those folks who may have missed it some pretty dramatic numbers about the year without a winter this winter and some of the departures from normal, but for the moment, we'll go back to the telephone and take your question. Good afternoon. We're listening. Hello. I'm kind of jealous really hearing all the good things you're able to study and must be fascinating to get paid for paying so much attention to the weather and so on and so I'd like to ask you if you talk a little bit about the weather industry, of course, then you have to make predictions and that's the hard part maybe and so could you tell me whether there were some people who keep track of the predictions that people make what is the track record (00:32:30) we all the what the weather service keeps records constantly of how well they're doing and their accuracy, I guess for the day to day forecast run somewhere around 85% Actually that hasn't Very much over the last 100 years being leave or not sleep probably improved 456 % but what has improved is their ability to make forecasts out to 5 to 10 days ahead and certainly the 48 hour forecast the semi to our forecast is far better than you used to be. And of course one thing that people should realize is that basically your forecast is all done by computer. No person can forecast the weather is accurately as a computer can and how this came about is kind of interesting back during World War One. There was a fellow named Richardson and he was an Englishman and he also happen to be a Quaker and he was a conscientious objector. So he got put into Ambulance Service along the front lines in France and he a lot of time of course to think because in those days you had people in the trenches and every so often they would tag, but most of the time it was just the doldrums so he got the idea of that. If you took the weather observations made around the earth put them into the formulas that govern the atmosphere you should be able to make a forecast. So when he got back to London after the war back to England he set up a project to do the very thing. He took the equations but the weather observations into him and he found he could make a better forecast and Lee weather office in London was making and this was all very good except it would take about two weeks to forecast. So as a result the forecast was he you useless so his paper was put on the library shelves together dust maybe once in a while. Somebody might have read it and but for the most part it was ignored and when the computer came along somebody said aha, let's get it. So basically Richardson work is implemented now in forecasting Bike by computer and virtually all the whether your forecast is done by computer. There is some interpretation. Yes. By meteorologists but that's interpreting the prognostic charts the the forecast Maps the computer drives, (00:34:52) but Bruce you are part of an industry. So to speak a group of people who are for hire by various groups who will consult with them. You are a Consulting meteorologist about the weather. Is that right? Yes, uh and you work for all sorts of different clients I take that's great the such as do you don't have to name names, but give us a range of some of the interests (00:35:11) represented. Okay, actually, I wear I do mostly is writing I write for newspapers magazines for a lot of farm Publications. Like I write for the farmer magazine that's published here by web company and st. Paul and I write for far magazines all the way from Washington Arizona all over the country and I write articles for newspapers. (00:35:35) So there are meteorologists at work for the CIA presumably. Oh, yes, right so you can go that direction to (00:35:41) right now and then I do quite a bit of storm investigation, too. Winds and precipitation Mosley and in the past. I've done a lot of work with Engineers with data programmers modeling problems. I haven't done too much of that in the last year or two occasionally. I've done work for the state in research projects. And of course other Consulting me routes to thing is that you can there there's so many things that you can do is as you say you can work for the state of our for the CIA for my first 13 years. I work for the defense industry actually on government contracts, which I liked a lot. Well I did for the first 13 years until my kids got old enough to be in school, but I worked on contracts that there were jelly-filled programs and then we would go back and take the data we gathered and do research but that we got to do a lot of very things so there's lots of things that we are honest can do. (00:36:42) All right. Let's get another question for you from a call or good afternoon Bruce Watson. Listening. Hi. I have two questions one is everyone keeps talking about this mild winter this year, but I remember to others and I'm wondering how they compare one was the winner of 81 and I remember a day in January of 81 that was 57 degrees. And the other was the winter of 75. I wasn't living in Minnesota, but I was living in Illinois and it was very mild that year and my other question is I'm wondering what is the relation between the national Center for atmospheric research and the National Weather Service? Thanks. (00:37:20) Okay. Yeah those years don't at all compared with this year, even though we had some record high temperatures. We also had a lot of cold weather and some of those years. We had a lot of snow 75 of course was the year. We had the pleasure of the century. So those Winters even though they had the extremes of the the averages are were wave far far below. The only winter that beats. This one was the winter of 1877. Temperature and the only one that beats us for dryness was the winter of 1957 58. So we're the second driest the second warmest and that's over a hundred sixty eight years. So this year indeed is highly exceptional and he had a second (00:38:03) question the national Center for atmospheric something or other and its relationship with the National Weather (00:38:08) Service. Okay. Actually, there's no relationship whatsoever. The National Weather Service is a government bureaucracy that makes weather forecasts. It basically serves the airline industry and gives out severe weather warnings that's their two main functions. And of course, they also do the day-to-day forecast. They do agricultural for gas. It basically is a service to the public to the public and the national assessment center for atmospheric research is a research facility that's located in Boulder, Colorado and They do is basically research you while is basic research on the atmosphere. They engage in a lot of studies of just about every aspect of meteorology and they get their funding largely from government support. And a lot of it is through universities. It basically was formed by a Consortium of universities back in the nineteen around (00:39:11) 1960. All right. We'll go back to the telephone. Good afternoon. Bruce Watson is listening for your question. Hello. How many degrees above normal was the average temperature for the winter of 1980 81. (00:39:26) I don't have those figures in front of me, but it was nowhere near (00:39:29) this. All right, we have other callers with questions for Bruce Watson will get to the next one right now. Good afternoon. We're listening. Yeah. Hi. Um, I'm wondering do you think this trend of below normal precipitation and above normal temperatures will continue into the spring and summer and when when should we start getting concerned about a possible drought? (00:39:50) Okay. No, I don't think it will continue. I expect that April actually will be pretty near normal in both temperature and precipitation and I expected me and June will be probably cold and wet July I think is going to probably be somewhat warm warm and dry now all bets are off as the ozone is totally disrupted the atmosphere in that case. I would have to shift all my gears. (00:40:12) You keep referring back to that. That's a pretty serious (00:40:14) wondering if anybody the thing is if it's not cyclical, I'm I'm really scared. This could cause massive disruption of the earth's climate and I just hope man hasn't fulfilled around once too often. (00:40:28) All right, we have other callers with questions. We'll get Next one good afternoon. Bruce's listening. Good afternoon. I'm curious about the water table. I understand that there is a cyclical rise and fall to the surface water here in Minnesota, and I'm kind of wondering even though this winter will create a perturbation in the cycle. I'm wondering whether It will be you know, where we are in that in that cycle and how long a cycle it (00:40:57) is? Well, okay be basically in the midwest you have and especially in Minnesota. You have a 20 year cycle to precipitation and we've were just pulling out of the wet part of the cycle and will now be going into a dryer part for the next 10 years. However studies I've done have shown that cloudiness is very great drink this part of the cycle of the where we're in for the next 10 years. So our our summer weather essentially is going to be fairly cloudy as well as on the dry side, then ten years after that starting about 10 years from now, we should go into another wet cycle. And then after that we should go in you need about the year 2010. We should go into a sunny drought a sunny dry cycle and that's where you're real. It comes every 40 years. If you look back in the 70s, we had extreme drought same thing was true in the 1930s. The same thing was true back in the 1890s. So we every 40 years we get the sunny drought but now we're going into the Cloudy drought now I shouldn't really say drought because I think this year is going to be below normal precipitation, but I don't think it's gonna be all that dry. However, in general the next 10 years should be much drier than the last 10 years and we may have one or two years ago on there. But we also may have one or two years of abundant rain, but in general we should see the lake levels drop and this should be true the Great Lakes to now some of the Lakes will take longer than others because they don't respond immediately and you should really get a hydrologist or analogous to discuss that because I don't really keep up with exactly what the response time of lakes is but the dent the trench should be (00:42:47) down. All right back to the telephone and another listener. Good afternoon. We're listening for your Hi Bruce, this is Bob Schwartz are at Long Lake Conservation Center. And I wanted to kind of corroborate what you said about what happened in the 1970s as far as when it was relatively dry. I moved here in 1975. And it was an extremely wet year and we had the drought and the Fire season in 1976. So I was wondering if there was going to be any correlation this year seeing the last year with so weapon. Apparently you don't feel it's going to be that way. I do have one other question or maybe it's a comment I share your concern with the ozone situation and we talked a little bit about that in our programs. We know what the causes are at least as a major suspect akkad's is the burning of fossil fuels but I'm wondering if if there are some things that we can do either as individuals or communities to try to reverse part of the Degradation and I'll go ahead and hang up that (00:43:55) well, I don't think there's much a person can do anymore is it if this is not a natural cycle, which I still hope it's too late. We may just have to face the consequences. I mean if it is kind of a Grimm thing what's really hurts right now is it we really don't know if it's natural or not. And if it isn't I shudder to think how the climate might (00:44:18) change and of course you point out you pointed out earlier that it's only been seven years that people have been collecting data on the ozone levels at the (00:44:24) polls. Right? We only have seven years of data and it's impossible to know if the trans going to continue (00:44:31) other callers with questions will get to the next one. Good afternoon. Bruce is listening. Hello. I have two questions. Pairing our climate with other climates around the globe since you've mentioned that the Twin Cities and Moscow have very similar climates. I was curious about how we up here in northern Minnesota compare say with Siberia if those are similar climates at all whereabouts in northern Minnesota Bemidji. Yes, okay, and it seems pretty tropical when we go south of the Twin Cities sometimes by comparison. I'll tell you but my second question was curious about tornadoes and if there are any other places in the world that have tornadoes the way we do here in the (00:45:12) Midwest. Okay. Well North America is the great home of about 90% of tornadoes occur on Earth. However tornadoes do it current other places one place where they're quite common is in hungry and tornadoes have been known to occur. Just about all over the world any place to get Sunday storms will get occasional tornado every few years England gets a tornado even so they do occur other places, but North America is by far the home of the tornado Why isn't that well, basically, yeah what really encourages it? It's the shape of the continent. We have the Gulf of Mexico off to the south of us. And so we have a supply of warm moist air and then of course, we have the poisons the north of us, but on top of that we got the Rocky Mountains to the west and the Great Plains and that provides us with a source of dry warm air. So when you mix dry warm air together with warm wet air and cold air, that's how you read a tornado. So North America is just beautifully shaped to give us The right ingredients for join a dough (00:46:15) and then the comparison of Bemidji with Siberia or I don't think that sounds very friendly at all. Bemidji has never felt like Siberia to me. (00:46:23) Well Bemidji might get close to some parts of Siberia. Certainly the embarrassed Valley of Minnesota, which is the true ice box of the state their average temperatures only about 33 degrees just a little bit about free from above freezing for the year for the year. Right? So when you're talking about the embarrassed Valley you are I think talking about the kinds of temperatures that are experienced in parts of science Siberia (00:46:46) tough to grow tomatoes and (00:46:47) temperatures. Well, you can't really Embrace value. They don't grow crops. You can't the basic farming there is horses. And of course, hey will grow there but you the embarrass Valley it's very pretty. You have the Giants Ridge on the south and you have the Vermilion range on the North and you have Glacial Hills on each side moraines. Yeah. So what happens is the cold air drains down there at nighttime and it fills up the valley and he gets very very very cold and it's just beautiful we when you approach the embarrass Valley from the south over Giants Ridge. It looks like this would be beautiful Lush farming country you get down there and nothing can be grown except. Hey because it's just too cold. There's Frost year-round. (00:47:38) All right, we'll get back to the telephone right now. Good afternoon Consulting meteorologist. Bruce Watson will take your question. I have two questions one if Wind Blows from west to east. Why did the Fallout from the nuclear power plant in Russia and in Europe, which is west of there into I've just been reading that the consider the permafrost is starting to melt because it's warming up up 47 degrees in the last hundred years. I read that yesterday and if that's true Why is the Frost line moving south because 40 or 50 years ago oranges were grown in the panhandle of Florida. And now it's virtually impossible to do that. They're actually going down the middle of the state. So the because it's too cold up in the northern part. What is happening there? (00:48:25) Well, I don't know how orange is could grow permanently in the panel, Florida because it fell below zero back in 1899 the Florida Panhandle and if somebody tried to plan oranges there, I think there must have been a very short project because the fourth panel always has been too cold for oranges at least I since we acquired from Spain, so it really I mean the climate hasn't cooled off by any means the Earth's temperature appears to be getting warmer. (00:48:58) Now the west to east wind flow in the issue. Oh, yeah radiation coming back down Western (00:49:03) Europe. Okay, the basic average wind flow is from west to east Aloft now. I'm about to get real. Sir, it's a ground. The prevailing wind is out of the Southwest because we have a big Whirlpool of there and the law of whirlpools is that if a Whirlpool Aloft is blowing from west to east then friction Alters the flow at the ground cause an imbalance and you get a Southwest wind. So but the thing is that little whirlpools form in this big whirlpool and the little whirlpools will bring you win some all directions as we know. Sometimes we is a storm is coming in will get an East Wind or a Southeast wind when the storm goes by we get a West Winter northwest wind. Well, right at the time of the Chernobyl incident the wind just happened to be coming from the East and Southeast and that's why I blew into Poland and in to Finland and Sweden. All right. Yeah, and then there was a Northeast wind that brought some to (00:50:02) Italy. All right back to the telephone another question. Good afternoon. We're listening. Good afternoon. I really enjoy it so far. Quick questions for you, the Farmers Almanac what is their track record been as far as predicting a the annual weather? (00:50:18) Well, I don't think the Farmers Almanac is intended to be anything more than fun. I think it's put out just for fun. And I don't think that they're really serious about weather forecasting if you want to get some insights you might pick up a copy of the 1846 Farmers Almanac and in there they give a method for forecasting the weather which may be I don't know it might be the method they (00:50:43) use where could you get that by the way the public library? Would you find out that on microfiche or (00:50:47) something might be I guess that'd be the the place to (00:50:51) start. We better send out a Librarians alert. I just mentioned the library. That means people call. All right, let's go back to the telephone for another question. Good afternoon. We're listening. Well, I have another egg. Agricultural question here. Where are you calling from from Albert Lea good for you. And it has to do with fall plowing Farmers. Couldn't Paul Paul much less fall because was froze so early. So now they're starting to plow again. Is this really like spring plowing now or is this like winter plowing? (00:51:25) Well, we didn't have a winter. So it's kind of hard to answer the question. I guess. It'd be like spring following. Our weather has been very spring-like in the last week as I say, in fact the last 10-15 days. We've had these very low relative humidities. So for all essential purposes, the relation of the atmosphere to the soil is definitely Springtime right. Now. (00:51:47) Another question will take it right now. Good afternoon. Bruce is listening. I was wondering is there any possible any feasibility for governments? Do a crash program to manufacture ozone on the earth service and somehow with space shuttle or some other way receded back into the upper atmosphere and reverse the effects or bring back a balance or at least somehow stop the fluorocarbons from continuing to eat up. What is up there? (00:52:26) Okay, I can't answer that question for sure. But I think because the man who is involved would be awfully difficult to manufacture ozone to put up there as far as the fluorocarbons. The problem has been that we stopped using them long time ago. But the other countries went the third world countries in Europe the Communist Bloc all of them just refused to go along. So here we were seeing United States being the only ones that were not using four carbons anymore. And if you can't get International cooperation, I might say this is true. Meteorology meteorology the atmosphere anything related to it? You have to have international cooperation of everybody no matter how much one country might hit another the if they want to work for the mutual benefit. They better share weather observations and everything else. It's something that should be really removed from war just like astronomy is in Chile. Of course, they have your National agreement that nobody disrupts the astronomical observatories for any for any reason (00:53:33) no matter what the government right, you know (00:53:35) chittoor anybody. Yeah that the whole thing that is left any pain above politics of (00:53:42) course weather information become strategic information. Sometimes as with crops and other (00:53:47) things. Oh, yeah, very very definitely. (00:53:49) We have another caller with a question. We'll take that listener right now. Good afternoon. Bruce is listening. I'd like to know if you can comment on the effects of this winter on us people here in Throughout the Midwest I found myself sometimes not really knowing how to feel about or how to act because I'm just so so unaware of such a winter. I'll hang up and listen. (00:54:17) Okay? Yeah your your response exactly what I've heard. A lot of people say it's been my response to you feel like you're in the wrong place. Yes. Yes sort of like going in the wrong restroom at a restaurant and you you just don't know what to think. It's what were they called cognitive dissonance is something (00:54:36) we're supposed to let me speak to this listener directly Bruce. We're supposed to be happy until we meet a cross-country skier. Right right something like that and I think but it's been very disruptive to people's moods and everything. Let's face it. We've had lots of sun. There should have been no depression caused by solar deprivation. Is that Ryan? Right? All right a couple of things let's get back to the point that you began with us on. Midday The Year Without a winter Bruce has put together. Some of these numbers we're going to repeat them again because they're a little odd and you're not going to hear them too many times because Bruce has speculated that it's going to be eight and a half Generations before we have one like this again. So Bruce these departures have been dramatic the second driest winter dunno the second warmest winter on record, right and then on down the line, which what else do you have from departure? (00:55:26) You're right the second driest also (00:55:28) and the second driest as well. Now the only question I have for you about 1877 through 78 measurements. Did they really have the accuracy that you have now (00:55:37) with? No, they were better. They were better write the accuracy of weather instruments decreased when they put an electronic thermometers, believe it or not because about a 1798 is the year that the liquid in glass thermometer was perfected the mercury thermometer and it was very accurate. It's always been the world's World standard now when they The crying thermometers they calibrate them after a liquid in glass thermometer. So the thermometer you calibrate by can't be more accurate than the calendar than the which you used to calibrate with. So there's no problem with the other observations moreover the weather data that I use I take from Fort Snelling which had a weather station until 1892 (00:56:31) and you point out eight-and-a-half. Generations will have to wait why that long? (00:56:36) Well, assuming that it's another hundred sixty years before we have went like this this window like this occurred only once in hundred sixty eight years. So again, of course, there's nothing is can't quick to say it whenever next year again. It might take another 1,000 years, but on the average we might expected about eight have Generations down the line will happen (00:56:58) again. All right, let's take the last question for Bruce Watson. Good afternoon. We're listening. I'm wondering about ozone against like a lot of people today and I'm wondering what's made up of and I take it can be manufactured from what we heard a couple of questions ago. So I'll leave you with that. (00:57:14) Okay? I'm not a chemist would basically what ozone is it's all three. It's oxygen with what three molecules is that right and I again, I'm not a chemist. (00:57:25) I'm just a radio announcer Bruce (00:57:27) or is it one molecule? You see we have all and 02 is the regular oxygen we breathe breathe in and then there's 03 right 03 is what we're talking about. We talk about all those on the other one is called Atomic oxygen. That's just all by itself. (00:57:46) Obviously, it can be made (00:57:47) occurs. No, yes, right exactly. Sunlight Jenna I believe is what causes the oxygen to in other words the 0222 Des associate and then I guess some of the Atoms are independent. That's your Atomic oxygen and then 03 is when one of those sticks onto a O2 molecule now if there's chemistry can straighten me out because I'm not a chemist (00:58:18) and one undoubtedly will have to if anything's been said wrong Bruce Watson. Thank you for coming in Consulting meteorologist Bruce Watson. Thanks for putting those numbers together. That's a lot of fun to look at the yeah the year without a winter who knows we may have to have Bruce back if we have a year without a spring or summer and talk about that.